This is for the veterans out there.
Is it at all possible for such a build to exist, 100 Spirit/ 0 Physique/ 0 Cunning ?
What would the advantages be…?
Any comments and ideas would be appreciated.
Regards
Gogga
It’s possible but at some point you have to wonder if you are not gimping your build just to say 100 spirit.
Best bet is spellbinder imo.
Advantage, bit more damage, having a theme, I guess
Spirit is a very weak stat later in the game. I once did a comparison, but the data got lost in time and I wasn’t able to find it anymore.
Long story short, stat bonus-wise physique and cunning are more or less equal (physique still wins, but not to the extent where points in cunning are strictly a waste).
Compared to cunning and physique spirit offers no OA/DA while only offering slightly more damage than cunning to compensate, as well as energy pool and energy regeneration, which are irrelevant on every build besides maybe AAR. Fun thing is, spirit’s damage bonus actually slightly tops cunning’s damage+OA bonus with the condition of no extra +%crit damage, but IIRC with about 10% they become on par and with +25% crit damage spirit loses a big deal, to the point when Spirit would need a 30-40% buff to compensate.
The only reason I would do this is if you find the game too easy and need to handicap yourself to keep things interesting.
Every point of Spirit provides 0.47% to direct magic damage (Fire, Cold, Lightning, Acid, Vitality, Aether, Chaos) and 0.5% to their respective DoT types.
105 points into Spirit without any % Spirit bonuses would net you +394.8% damage to all direct magic and +420% damage to all duration magic.
Eh, late game, somewhere around a 15-20% total damage increase before procs I think?, % damage has diminishing returns so the higher your % damage goes, the less effective this bonus will be.
Compared to the norm that is Physique? 105 Physique comparatively gives +336 Defensive Ability, +2100 health and +42 health regeneration before % bonuses apply. You will also struggle to wear heavy armour if you do not invest into Physique. This will limit your gear selection.
HP also has diminishing returns, in fact going by your examples 394.8% damage equals four item slots while a single “of Vitality” affix could net you more than 1000 hp - half of what 105 physique gives you (although among the legendary items hp bonuses average at roughly 500). The difference between 10k and 12k is “only 20%” as well. Health regen is good but more like a pleasant extra, similar to energy pool & regen from Spirit. But 336 DA isn’t counterweighted by anything. Moreover OA/DA are the only stats that don’t have diminishing returns - 50 OA on level 1 and on level 100 give equal benefits.
So unless OA&DA become so dirt-cheap that any build could get 3.5k both without any serious compromises Spirit won’t be considered as viable investment.
So , in other words I might choose to invest in Spirit early on just for Leveling purposes if I choose to use lets so for example WoP/OFF as my main clearing skill, and the later reset attributes to the most commonly/rewarding route of 105 to physique.
This early investment in Spirit will also ease/negate early level energy problems.
Now if only the truly mad and number oriented testers can gimme some number on a Lvl 30 toon using WoP/OFF as skill and the difference there is in dmg output when early on all is invested in Spirit vs Physique.
Thank you for all the input so far, learning alot here.
Regards
Gogga
Elvenis didn’t list a leveling guide, but this is the closest thing to your concept that has been posted so far. 78 Spirit investment, 26 Physique investment. Takes advantage of the huge Spirit damage bonuses to increase the damage of its main attack using multiple sources of damage.
If anything, it’s a great showcase of how well different layers of defense match up when the traditional method of Physique stacking to get HP + DA is not present.
Imagine if spirit gave crit damage. For example, 0.2% per point, 20% at 100 points spent. I think that might work, but you know how Crate is. ^^
Don’t mind me, just thinking out loud. 
Given how not exactly difficult it is to get high crit damage, this wouldn’t make Spirit more attractive.
You might be right, but some people love additional damage increases and still go glass cannons that have high OA, Crit damage and % damage. No, not me, I love defense.
Spirit maxing would somewhat makes sense if there were skills dealing damage based off current/max mana, akin to feedback sorc in MedianXL.
Otherwise it just provides a bit more spell damage, but won’t put “cannon” in “glass cannon”.